


Each in our Purpose

by artistfingers



Category: Magic Kaito
Genre: Character Turned Into Vampire, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Vampires, nobody will take Kaito seriously, not even Kaito, or is it serious treated crackily?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:53:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27297442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artistfingers/pseuds/artistfingers
Summary: “So,” Aoko said, looking like she’d rather be using her fists than her words.“So,” Kaito said.“You’re a vampire.”“I’mprobablya vampire.”“And you want to drink my blood.”“... technically, I only asked to taste it.”
Relationships: Hakuba Saguru & Kuroba Kaito | Kaitou Kid, Kuroba Kaito | Kaitou Kid & Nakamori Aoko
Comments: 21
Kudos: 73
Collections: DCMK Fanfiction Server 2020 Halloween Exchange





	Each in our Purpose

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jjriot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjriot/gifts).



> Happy Halloween! This was written for the DCMK Fanfic Server’s 2020 Halloween prompt exchange. For Jay: “Touching Pandora turns Kaito into a vampire.”
> 
> A huge thank-you shoutout to [Mirror](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubberLotus) for helping me revise this, and also because I cribbed ~~a couple~~ _a lot_ of lines from him in that process. I almost feel like I should be crediting him as the co-author XD so I mean it wholeheartedly when I say this fic would be far less funny and infinitely more OOC without him.
> 
> He also suggested the title, which comes from _Dracula_ : “But we are strong, each in our purpose, and we are all more strong together.”
> 
> Small CW for blood/biting/knives towards the end of the fic.

* * *

After Pandora, after Kaitou Kid’s retirement, after Kaito said, “Good riddance,” and dropped the offending doublet into an incinerator at the closest junkyard—after all of that and a little bit more—Kaito couldn’t sleep.

It took four days after Everything (as Kaito colloquially began calling… Everything) for him to realize the insomnia was actually here to stay, haunting him like a particularly clingy shadow. Being an individual of high energy and hard crashes, this wasn’t exactly pleasant for him, but he shrugged it off as a strange new stress response. Not the first time he’d screwed himself over, either on accident or on purpose.

(One day, probably, he’d write a memoir and stick that on the cover. Toho could have the movie rights.)

Anyway, insomnia. Not a traditional sign of the onset of vampirism, if ninety-eight percent of extant texts were anything to go by. _Not_ a sign that a single atheist Japanese teenager should’ve been expected to clock in any way, shape, or form.

  
But when did life _ever_ care about expectations?

* * *

Aoko noticed first.

Yes, even coming off the tail-end of the coldest cold-shoulder she’d given Kaito in thirteen years, Aoko _still_ picked up on Kaito’s sleep deprivation. She was sharp like that. Or maybe just closer to the Knee-Jerk Reaction phase of the Identity Reveal portion of Everything than Kaito realized.

“You haven’t been sleeping, have you,” she said angrily as they started their latest pilgrimage to the other end of campus (because dear gods, _who_ placed these GEs so far apart?).

“So?” Kaito said.

He was more than a little bit miserable, with Mantendo cap smushed over his head and squinting out at the world from below the brim. It was one hell of a lot brighter than was reasonable for mid-afternoon. He wished, not for the first time, and not altogether kindly, that the sun would sink its unhelpful ass below the horizon already. Moonlight was much nicer; plus, if it were nighttime, he’d be socially obligated to lie in bed instead of wavering across campus like a mirage off the top of hot asphalt. 

_“So,_ have you _really_ given up your night job?” Aoko fired back with a hefty amount of unpacked rage that—had they been a year younger—would’ve been channeled directly into a vicious mop-swing.

_“Yes,_ I have, Ahoko,” Kaito said. “It’s like you don’t trust me, geeze.”

She spun to face him, hands on her hips. Kaito stumbled clumsily to a stop. Damn his tired feet. “Would _you_ trust you, after Everything?” she spat.

Kaito deliberated for ten whole seconds, then squared his shoulders and raised his chin. “Yes.”

“That’s because you’re an idiot,” Aoko said, somehow managing to sound both pissed and condescending simultaneously.

“Don’t you trust me?” Kaito whined.

“Definitely not,” Aoko said. “You’re _Kaitou Kid.”_

“Was,” Kaito said. “And I thought we were past this!”

Aoko glared. “Go home and get some sleep or I’m going to kick you so hard that your shins snap clean in half.” 

“Awww. B—”

“Yes, _both of them.”_

There were precious few _serious_ battles worth fighting to the bitter end, when it came to Aoko.

...Kaito quickly decided that this was not one of them.

So he took the six-fifteen home and, predictably, failed to sleep; even with his curtains pulled tight and several layers of fabric jury-rigged over them, his room still had an inescapable tinge of orange. Glaring in the general direction of the wall didn’t help, either; it only gave him a headache as the last, most insistent rays of light bounced off the wallpaper and straight into his eyeballs.

It had been a miserable few days, since Everything. It wasn’t just insomnia and light-induced headaches; sometime around the two-days-post mark, something had happened to his tongue, something that left everything from rice to meat to candy to _water_ tasting like sand. That was the kind of thing even extreme sleep-deprivation couldn’t do, as far as Kaito was aware. Shouldn’t hallucinations come first?

After what felt like an hour, he flopped an unruly arm from beneath the duvet and located his phone. 

“Kuroba,” came Hakuba’s curt voice when Kaito squintingly pushed his phone against his ear. “To what do I owe the pleasure of a call during lecture?”

“You can go ahead and thank the universe, and Lady Luck while you’re at it, too,” Kaito drawled. Of course Hakuba’s fancy London university was having classes at… whatever time of the morning it was over there. He didn’t feel like doing the math. “Anyway, I’m having an issue.”

“That’s not my problem,” Hakuba said.

“Yes, it is,” Kaito said.

Hakuba made a noise that was either a sigh in his own private language of long-suffering, or an open invitation to carry on. Kaito picked the second.

“Tell me how to fix my issue.”

“You could start by seeing a therapist about your unresolved trauma regarding your father’s untimely—”

“Not _that_ issue,” Kaito scowled, hopefully hard enough to carry two oceans over.

“Then please, by all means, enlighten me as to what issue you are experiencing so I may spend my precious time and resources rectifying it.”

Kaito worked his tongue around his mouth, and promptly yelped at the unpleasant reminder that he had teeth. Specifically, two very sharp canines that, right now, felt more like tiny daggers inside his extremely soft and delicate mouth.

“Kuroba?” Hakuba asked. “Are you okay?”

Eyes watering, he opened the front camera on his phone, pulled his lips back, and looked.

Two long, pointy _things_ looked back.

He stuck out his tongue. There was an agitated-looking wound, all right, but it wasn’t bleeding. He poked it and winced. It sure did hurt, but… no blood.

“Huh,” he said.

_“Kuroba,”_ Hakuba said, now with a note of tired warning. Warning, and something that, out of literally anyone else’s mouth, Kaito might’ve called worry. 

Imagine that.

“What kind of medical condition includes extreme insomnia, cuts that don’t bleed, light sensitivity, and a lack of appetite?” Kaito asked.

A pause came over the line. “Those are… considerable symptoms,” Hakuba said eventually. “Have you gone to the doctor?”

“Hey, nobody said this was about me,” Kaito said.

“You literally just—” Hakuba’s voice tapered off into a decidedly un-English groan. “Okay. Fine. So it’s not about you.”

“Good. Oh, and spontaneous fang growth. What do you think that’s about? Asking for a friend.”

There was another pause, much longer than the first. Kaito was about ready to decide the guy had signed off (or, possibly, seen his professor keel over from an unanticipated cyanide poisoning) when a new sound came over the line.

It was dry. It was ugly. It took him ten seconds to decipher, and two to realize he shouldn't have bothered.

Hakuba was _laughing_.

“Oh, I get it,” he said. _“Very_ funny, Kuroba.”

“What?” Kaito growled.

“You can leave off the joking,” Hakuba said. “You got me. For fifty-eight-point-fourteen seconds, I was actually _concerned_ for you. What did you really call for?”

“This _is_ what I called for,” Kaito said indignantly. “If you’re going to be an ass about it, how ‘bout I jump on the next plane to London and hold a nice big comeback heist, just so I can have the pleasure of dyeing your hair green again.”

“Oh, no, whatever shall I do,” Hakuba said.

“I mean it,” Kaito insisted.

  
“Call me back when your _friend_ is done making bad jokes about Count Dracula,” Hakuba said. “I’ve a class to attend.” Then, because he was still too polite to hang up abruptly, he said, “Goodbye,” and _then_ hung up.

* * *

“So,” Aoko said, looking like she’d rather be using her fists than her words.

“So,” Kaito said.

“You’re a vampire.”

“I’m _probably_ a vampire.”

“And you want to drink my blood.”

“... technically, I only asked to taste it.”

Aoko immediately got to work smothering Kaito with his own pillow. _The traitor._ “THAT’S NOT ANY BETTER!”

“It’s way better!” Kaito protested, struggling against her and her weaponized memory-foam. 

Then it occurred to him that maybe he didn’t need to fight her off. If he held his breath, either, A) he’d pass out and Aoko would feel bad and let him have his way when he regained consciousness, or B) literally nothing would happen because vampires didn’t need to breathe, probably? Since they didn’t have normal blood or anything like that? 

Hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

It only took about a minute of venturing for Aoko to ease off, but she did so warily. “Kaito…?”

He shoved the pillow off his face and arched an eyebrow at her. She squinted at him, then pointedly looked at his chest. He glanced down, too. It was ominously still, at least until Aoko jabbed a sharp finger between his ribs and made him squeak.

“Oh, thank god,” Aoko muttered.

“What was that for?” Kaito cried.

“For being a jerk!” Aoko vollied back.

“Can I have some blood _now?”_ Kaito asked.

“No!”

“Oh, so you want me to die?” He’d started to sit up, but now fell back with all the drama he could muster.

_“No!”_

“So you’d really rather just let me die than prick your finger,” Kaito said.

“You’re not going to die!” Aoko said.

“You don’t know that!” Kaito frowned. “If I’m a vampire, I need blood! I’ve literally never drank any before, so technically, I’m starving!”

Aoko paused. “Do you _feel_ like you’re starving?”

“I sure don’t feel _good,”_ Kaito replied mulishly.

He looked the part, too: like something that had died and then gone for a spin in a microwave on the defrost setting. The lack of food had made him an unpleasant shade of pale, complete with an unhealthy green tinge and prominent bruises defining the lower curve of his eye sockets. For added effect, he gave Aoko a pout.

She crossed her arms. “How do you expect me to give you blood, anyway? Idiot.”

“Um, these?” Kaito pointed out one of his brand-new fangs to her.

After a moment of inspection, Aoko crossed her arms. “That’s gross.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s sanitary,” Kaito said.

“Are you kidding me? There’s no _way_ your mouth is sanitary,” Aoko said.

“That’s how every _other_ vampire does it.”

“That doesn’t mean they _should!_ People get _rabies_ from bites, you know!”

“Wh—I’m not some wild animal!”

“You might as well be, calling me over here at night so you can _bite_ me!” Aoko shrieked.

“Are you saying I don’t brush my teeth?!”

“I’m sure saying _something!”_

“I brush my teeth all the time!”

“Don’t care! Still gross!!”

Kaito’s headache was worsening, throbbing behind his right eye, egged on by the yelling and the realization that he’d seen himself in the bathroom mirror not twelve hours ago, and wasn’t there something about vampires not having reflections? Or was that only with _silver_ mirrors, or…? Well, whatever. Vampirism was the best lead he had right now, and so, in the spirit of scientific inquiry, he needed to do an experiment. 

  
And experiments called for willing subjects.

“But if it was sanitary, you’d do it?” he asked, then engaged her in about ten seconds of a staring contest.

After the staredown, Aoko conceded, “Hypothetically. I _guess.”_

“Hypothetically,” Kaito said, to clarify, “if I was a vampire, and I needed some blood, and I was your life-long best friend whom you love very much, you would allow me to bite you, and have some blood, so that I wouldn’t die, as long as everything was sanitary.”

“Yeah. Hypothetically. If all of that were true.” Aoko said. _“But,_ right now, I can’t tell if _any_ of it is.”

_“I_ can.”

“Prove it.”

Kaito tossed his hands up. “Don’t you think I’m trying?”

“I think you’re being an asshole,” Aoko said.

That, Kaito couldn’t wholly deny, even if instinct told him to. “I can do both!”

Aoko opened her mouth, then closed it and settled for a silent glower. Kaito grinned, which earned him a nice smack on the arm. He was nothing if not a proficient multitasker, and she knew it.

At the end of the day, though, Aoko was probably fighting him just for the sake of it. Because Aoko was still _Aoko,_ even if mop-fights hadn’t followed them to college; and Kaito couldn’t just ignore the fact that they were only a matter of days out from Everything. And Everything was just the right kind of stressor to make Aoko dig her heels in over anything that bugged her.

Like gaining irrefutable proof about whether or not Kaito had spontaneously turned into a vampire.

“Fine,” Kaito said, rubbing his upper arm where it stung. “What do you want me to do?”

“Take those stupid Halloween fangs out,” she said.

“Okay,” Kaito said. “I would. But I can’t.” The fifteen minutes he’d spent trying after his little conference with Hakuba had taught him that much.

“Shrivel up in the sun.”

“The sun just went down.”

“Eat some garlic.”

_“Raw_ garlic?”

“If you want to be efficient about it. Sure.”

Kaito sighed, long and hard. “That’s gonna taste really bad,” he said. Then relented when Aoko looked like she might smack him in the arm again. “Okay! Okay! Garlic! Mmm, garlic! Let’s go eat some garlic!”

Aoko tailed him downstairs to the kitchen, and then proceeded to stand around unhelpfully for five minutes while Kaito rummaged through all the cupboards and came up with a whole load of nothing. The kitchen hadn’t been properly stocked since oh, say, the last… month?

He made the mistake of saying that last part out loud, raising one of Aoko’s trademark And-whose-fault-is- _that?_ snorts. To which he _could_ have tossed ‘Oh, I dunno, the grown woman who still _owns_ this house?’, except it was in the exact moment he dug into the back of the spoon drawer and found a bottle of garlic powder, so he tossed _that_ instead.

She caught it in one hand.

Kaito didn’t know whether to scowl or applaud. He settled for climbing off the counter.

By then, Aoko had already dipped a teaspoon in the bottle. Kaito took it, and gingerly gave it a sniff, which immediately caused him to gag. Okay, he’d never been an aficionado or anything, but this was ridiculous.

He gave Aoko a watery-eyed pleading look once he recovered. “Do I really—”

“Yes,” she said, though Kaito could see a small crease forming between her eyebrows.

“If I die, that’s on your conscience.”

“I don’t think that a _teaspoon_ of garlic kills vampires,” Aoko said, though the more Kaito glared at the spoon, the less certain she sounded. “Right? Don’t you have to… cut their head off and stuff it with garlic _cloves?_ That’s a lot of garlic.” She hesitated. “I mean, I _thought_ that’s what it was…” 

“Here goes nothing,” Kaito said miserably, and licked some of the powder. He’d have licked all of it, but the spoon and the rest of its contents went flying, because _oh gods oh gods it burned like HELL._

Next thing he knew, there was something cold and smooth on his fingers. Aoko, bless her angry, angry soul, was pressing a cup of water into his hands. He swished and spit a few times, until the pain dulled down to something that let him have coherent thoughts.

“Are you okay?”

Kaito, forehead on the counter beside the sink, mumbled something that might’ve been “define _okay_ ”.

Aoko hovered over his shoulder while he wallowed. Maybe for a minute, maybe for an hour. When he finally peeled himself off the counter, he saw that she’d mercifully put away the garlic powder and refilled his water, which he sipped tentatively.

  
“So,” Aoko said.

“So,” Kaito said.

“You’re pretty pathetic right now,” she said. 

He glared at her weakly from over the rim of his glass, and she had enough respect for him to look a little guilty.

“What I _mean,”_ she said, “is that you’re a good actor, but you don’t like to act… sad.”

“Thank you for the glowing review,” Kaito muttered.

_“But,”_ she said, “you could still be acting.”

  
Kaito groaned. “Just let me have some blood,” he said. “If it fixes everything, we’ll know for sure.”

“I bet we can think of something el—”

“Give me your finger,” he said. When Aoko only glared, he said, “What, would the wrist be better? The neck?”

Aoko clapped her palms around her neck. “Don’t you _dare!”_

“C’mon, Aoko. I don’t ask for much.”

“Don’t ask for much? Oh, right, sure,” Aoko said, voice rising, and Kaito realized he’d just lost whatever ground that pity-party had bought. “Just _billion-yen_ valuables.”

“One, most of them were in the _millions_ range, tops,” Kaito said. “Two, I gave them back. To their rightful owners. Mostly. And three, I never _asked_ for them.”

“That’s _one hundred percent worse!”_ Aoko shrieked.

Kaito pressed the heel of one palm below his right eyebrow, which did precisely jack shit to ward off the insistent pounding. “It still worked!” he said. “And it’s over now!”

“Why can’t you just admit you’re in the wrong?” Aoko seethed. “You broke the law! You broke a dozen laws! _You broke a dozen laws hundreds of times!”_

“If I say you’re right will you stop yelling?” Kaito asked. “Because you’re right, I broke multiple laws.”

Aoko set her jaw. “And you were wrong to do so.”

Kaito dragged his hand down his face. “You know, I’m starting to think you’re not on my side here.”

“I’m _not.”_

“Could we come back to this conversation?” Kaito asked, all but pleading. “Like, after the blood conversation?”

“Hm.” Something flashed in Aoko’s eyes. “No, I think I want to finish _this_ conversation.”

“Okay,” Kaito sighed. “Fine. I did bad stuff, no matter what my reasons were. I _know._ And I know you hate that you didn’t know for, like, three years. I’m sorry.” He paused, wincing. Guilt wasn’t something he processed easily, at eight or eighteen. “Truly and honestly, Aoko. I wish I’d told you a lot sooner.”

The apology hung between them for a long moment. Finally, Aoko exhaled, slow and controlled, bringing her temper back into check. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” 

“It was, actually. Because of the garlic, you know. From before.” Hell, his tongue was _still_ burning. He closed his eyes and worked the spit around his mouth. First the fangs, then the garlic? He’d be lucky to have a functional mouth tomorrow.

Aoko’s slippers moved softly across the linoleum. She was standing close when he looked up, holding a steak knife, a determined glint in her eyes and her jaw set tight.

  
Kaito pulled a face. “If you want to try the whole pierce-its-heart thing next, I think you’re gonna need wood.”

“This isn’t for _you,_ idiot,” she said. “It’s for me.” Then she held up both hands, the blade of the knife almost flush with her index finger.

Kaito waited.

  
And waited.

The knife wavered.

“Aoko—”

_“Fuck!”_ she said, abruptly shoving the knife flat against his chest, her eyes screwed shut and nose wrinkled. “Just do it, and do it fast!”

With one hand, Kaito eased the knife out of Aoko’s tightly curled fingers; he cupped the other below her outstretched hand. Before she could change her mind, he drew a cut over the pad of her index finger. She flinched as the blood, almost shining red, welled up from the wound.

He didn’t expect it to smell so strongly, but it did: sweet and coppery all at once. He inhaled sharply and dropped the knife on the counter before bending his head to their clasped hands. Though his tongue still burned from the garlic, he didn’t want to nick her a second time with his newly razor-sharp canines.

So he used his tongue.

One millisecond later, Aoko was yanking her hand away, spluttering. “YOU _LICKED ME!!_ I DIDN’T SAY YOU COULD _LICK_ ME!!” 

Kaito didn’t bother to question why _that_ was the most pressing matter on Aoko’s mind; he was feeling more alive than he had during the last four days combined. His headache was receding, and the fog of fatigue had cleared ever-so-slightly. Every ache and pain had, in one moment, eased.

All that just from a _taste?_

He licked his lips.

“Oh, no,” Aoko said, already backing away. “Oh, no you don’t, Kaito.”

“Just a little more,” he said, tone immediately dropping into wheedling. He pressed his palms together. “Please, Aoko? A little more blood?” 

“I just saw your pupils contract like a _cat,”_ Aoko half-whispered, half-hissed. “This is going to give me _nightmares_ ‘til—”

“Please? For your very best friend whom you love very much?”

“No! This was an _experiment,_ and now it’s over!”

“Experiments have to be replicable,” Kaito reasoned. “C’mon. For science! Please? I’ll buy you ice cream anytime you want. For eternity.”

But Aoko didn’t seem to be listening anymore; instead, she was examining her finger. She pulled away warily when Kaito leaned in to get a look, but didn’t hide from him. She was no longer bleeding. In fact, the cut was already scabbing over, pale and thin.

“Magic spit?” Kaito said blankly. “Magic _healing_ spit?”

“Gross,” Aoko muttered, wiping her finger on her shirt. “I can’t believe you got turned into a _vampire.”_

“... so, about more blood—”

Aoko speared him with an icy glare. “I’ve got conditions.”

“Anything,” Kaito said quickly.

“You’re going to apologize to my dad,” she said. _“Properly._ For Everything. Not like that half-assed _whatever_ you gave me.”

“Hey, it was at least three-fourths—”

Aoko’s hands made the smallest, most subtle _I-can-throw-a-fist-before-your-next-blink_ twitch. Kaito caught himself in mid-objection and turned it into a nod in triplicate.

“Dogeza and all.”

“You’ll buy _him_ ice cream, too,” she said.

Kaito blinked, considered his food budget, then considered its wider significance in the face of eternal undeath. “Yes.”

“You’ll let him handcuff you and toss you in the back of a squad car.”

“....yes?”

“In the Kid getup.”

“....uh—”

“You’ll let the reporters get some really clear, unmistakable pictures.” Her eyes were practically daring Kaito to challenge her as she stepped into his space.

“....or,” he said slowly, “I could hold a _really_ cool swan-song heist, maybe dye Hakuba’s hair green or douse him in glitter, invite Tantei-kun, yanno, the whole shebang. Make my exit _really_ official. Show up on a church spire, get all spooky, proclaim that I must attend to Higher Callings from here on out. _Then_ turn into a bat. _Ooh,_ now, actually, there’s an idea—”

“Oooooor,” Aoko cut him off dangerously, “you could wear the cuffs like a good little thief and tell all the kids watching at home that crime. Doesn't. Pay.” She jabbed a finger into his chest to punctuate the last few words.

Kaito groaned. “That’s boring.”

“It’s _noble.”_

“Don’t I get a—”

_“So,”_ Aoko barreled on, “Dad will retire as the man who arrested Kaitou Kid.” 

“...as long as the details are still up for debate.” Kaito sighed. “Then alright.”

She studied him for a long moment before nodding. “Okay. You can have some more blood.”

Kaito threw his arms around her and squeezed her tight. “You’re the best, Aoko!”

She leaned against his chest. “You’re cold,” she muttered.

“I don’t think vampires have circulatory systems, so that tracks.”

Aoko pulled out of Kaito’s arms before he could start thinking too hard about _her_ fully functional circulatory system.

“This is a _one-time_ thing,” she said. “Alright? We don’t even know if this is putting _me_ at risk of…” She tapered off. That was all the warning Kaito got before she was yanking him down to her level, both hands fisted in the collar of his shirt and panic flaring in her eyes. “Kaito, _so help me god,_ if you turn _me_ into a vampire—”

“I don’t think it works like that,” Kaito said.

“That’s how it _always_ works!”

“Maybe in the movies, but _I_ wasn’t bitten by anything!”

“How do you know?” Aoko asked. She still wasn’t letting go of his collar and was, in fact, using her grip to rattle him around.

“I _think_ I’d know!”

“Not if it was something small! Like a _tick!”_

Kaito made a rather accurate goldfish impression at her. “You think a _bug_ turned me into a—no, you know what? That _would_ be just my luck... but I still doubt it!”

“So what did it, huh? Kaito?!”

“My money’s on Pandora,” Kaito said, peeling Aoko’s fingers off his shirt. “That thing had about ten thousand years to soak up curses.”

Aoko studied him like she would a particularly thorny physics problem; then she had her lightbulb moment. “You don’t know _anything.”_

“Gee, what gave it away?”

She scowled at him before scrubbing her hands over her face. _“I_ don’t know anything, either, dumbass.”

“At least you believe me,” Kaito said. Nevermind the three-ring-circus-act it had taken to get there. “Hakuba just thought I was joking. And then he hung up on me! Can you believe it? _Hakuba_ hanging up on someone!”

“You told _Hakuba_ before _me?”_ Aoko asked, locating her temper once more. “Hakuba, on another _continent?!”_

Kaito grimaced at the volume. Had it been too much to hope that they were done with the yelling? “No! I just asked him a few questions and he was an asshole about it! He called me Count Dracula!”

“...and _that’s_ what got you to call me over and ask for blood?”

“Well, yeah. Pretty much.”

She processed that with her hands square on her hips and a squint. Kaito could only shrug. 

Eventually, Aoko tilted her head back to study the ceiling and think. “Akako-chan might know a thing or two about vampires,” she said. “She’s really into mythology, right?"

A nervous laugh escaped Kaito almost involuntarily. “Let’s put a pin in that one,” he said. “We’ll label it ‘last resort’ and then toss it down the food disposal.”

“Like _you_ have any better ideas,” Aoko muttered.  
  


“Actually,” Kaito said, mind clocking in about two gears behind his mouth, “I do, and it’s called the Internet.”

“... what?.”

“The _Internet,”_ Kaito repeated, “which just so happens to be our glorious, no-strings-attached access point to all vampire media and literature, ever.”

Aoko was brightening before he’d even finished. It was so good to see her smile that Kaito couldn’t help but do the same. 

“You know what that means?” she asked.

“... we’re about to get a geeky-looking search history?”

“We’ve got to have a _movie night._ No, no, wait—a movie _marathon.”_ Her expression turned smugly sinister. “I’m _finally_ going to make you sit through all the _Twilight_ movies!”

Kaito froze. Certain memories of things he’d endured over eighteen months in middle school flashed behind his eyes. “What’d I do to deserve that?!”

Aoko snorted. “What _didn’t_ you do, Kaito?”

“I—”

“Don’t answer that.” Aoko hauled him to the couch and dropped him in a heap before locating his laptop.

Though Kaito voiced a laundry list of complaints while Aoko hooked up the HDMI cable, he could acknowledge that a few unhelpful-slash-unwatchable movies were a small price to pay compared to Kaitou Kid’s impending (and possibly… _undignified)_ retirement. Not to mention the yelling contest that would probably spawn when he reminded Aoko about the so-called ‘meal’ she’d promised him.

Or maybe the brief reprieve from the splitting headaches was making him generous.

He wilted into the cushions. “Okay, what’s the damage on this pretty-boy vampire trilogy?”

“It’s a _pentalogy,”_ Aoko said, not looking up. “Just over ten hours.”

_“Ten hours?!”_ Kaito flopped back with a fresh groan.

“We can take notes,” Aoko said consolingly, for all the world like that was a reasonable consolation prize. The movie was already starting as she sat beside Kaito, cuddling a throw blanket.

“I don’t want _Twilight_ -vampire notes,” Kaito sulked. “I want _cool_ vampire notes. And to do cool vampire experiments. Like not starving.”

Aoko chewed the inside of her cheek for a long while, before shrugging. “How about one experiment after each movie?”

“As long as the next experiment is more blood.”

Aoko rolled her eyes. “Alright. The one after _that_ can be invincibility.”

Kaito snorted. “What are you gonna do, shoot me point-blank with my card gun?”

When Aoko's eyes lit up, Kaito knew he’d made the wrong offer.

* * *


End file.
